10 Key Managerial Roles by Henry Mintzberg in the Organization

What are Managerial Roles?

Managerial roles or management roles refer to the tasks, duties, or responsibilities to be performed by managers at different levels in the workplace.

These roles define what managers need to do in the organization as being the managers. What roles a manager has to do and what does not depends upon the positions, levels, and authority he is given.

Managers have to do different duties in the organizational periphery in order to bring efficiency and coordination to achieve desired goals. Sometimes the role might be leading employees, resolving conflicts, negotiating terms, etc.

According to Henry Mintzberg, there are 10 primary managerial roles a manager performs in the organization. Based on the thorough study of five executives Mintzberg identified these 10 roles.

He and his followers emphasized that these 10 management roles are an effective way to identify what managers do in the organization. These consist of three categories and a total of ten. They are:

1. Interpersonal Roles
   • Figurehead
   • Leader
   • Liaison
2. Informational Roles
   • Monitor
   • Disseminator
   • Spokesperson
3. Decisional Roles
   • Entrepreneur
   • Disturbance Handler
   • Resource Allocator
   • Negotiator

Here, we will discuss what these individual managerial roles are and how you can be prepared to better perform these roles as a manager.

10 Managerial Roles by Henry Mintzberg

Let’s look in detail at these management roles.

Interpersonal Roles of Manager

The interpersonal roles of a manager refer to interaction with people inside and outside the organization. He has to work on building good relationships with employees, different departments, organizational units, shareholders, and other organizational stakeholders.

Related: What are Managerial Skills?

As a manager, you have to establish good interpersonal relationships inside as well as outside the organization. The informational roles consist of three. They are:

Figurehead Role

In this role, the manager acts as a figurehead of the organization. He does this role when he attends programs ceremonial and symbolic in nature.

He stands on behalf of his organization as an important figure. He does greeting visitors, distributes gifts, and provides signatures to ensure the organization’s agreements.

To be a good figurehead you should start working on how to be a good symbolic figure-role model, how to leave a good example, be empathetic, and build confidence in the given responsibilities.

Leader Role

A manager also plays a leader’s role. As a leader, the manager has to guide and influence employees toward the organization’s interests. He might lead employee groups, various units, departments, as well as a whole organization.

The manager has to lead, supervise, direct, coordinate, motivate, and control different organizational elements for effective performance and efficient achievement of desired goals. He may further motivate employees through rewards and punishment to make them work.

To play the role of a good leader you should learn and develop different leadership skills and qualities, take leadership training, learn to respect employees, lead them by example, and improve emotional intelligence.

Liaison Role

In the liaison role, the manager works to maintain a good relationship with the community. It helps managers to maintain a good public image.

Managers create such good images and relationships by integrating with people, providing facilities that advance community, and bearing social responsibility. As such managers work as a bride between different units of the organization and outsiders.

To be a good liaison role you should learn how to communicate with the community, understand the communities’ problems & helps them to solve them, and build good relationships with them and try to match organizational interest with the community’s interest.

Informational Roles of a Manager

The right information is required in the organization for the right decisions to be made. The second category of managerial roles includes collecting, refining, and distributing inside and outside information to different organizational units, departments, employees, and outside agencies.

These roles of managers include monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson.

Also Read: Henri fayol’s 14 Principles of Management

Monitor Role

The monitor role of the manager includes collecting and scanning different inside and outside environment information required by the organization. He regularly assesses and watches over activities taking place inside and outside the organization.

The collected information is scanned and kept safe which is necessary to pass others and make required strategies. It further helps the manager to keep updated on new changes.

To play a good monitor role develop your information gathering and analyzing skills, be updated on new changes in the environment, and learn to identify information between useful and unuseful.

Disseminator Role

The collected information does not work itself. This role of managers includes the transmission of required and appropriate information inside the organization through different channels.

The managers need to organize and supply the right information to the right person for the right effective and efficient execution of plans and policies.

Related: What is Organizing?

To improve the disseminator role learn how to communicate with different organizational units, builds delivery channels, and learn to share information effectively.

Spokesperson Role

In the spokesperson role, a manager speaks outside on behalf of the organization. He is responsible to share matters of the organization with the outside public, media, and government agencies as a part of his legal obligation.

This means managers share organizational information with the public. In doing they also have to answer the public’s questions.

To be a good spokesperson you should learn how to be a good public speaker, how to represent the organization, how to work with the media, and how to respond to people’s queries with comfort.

Decisional Roles of Manager

The third category of managerial roles includes making decisions i.e. choosing the best alternative from available ones to solve the given problems or achieve plans.

Related: What is Decision Making?

This is the most important role of managers in the organization. Managers need to develop policies, plans, and strategies for negotiating and handling uncertainties. This role is performed through negotiation, resource allocation, disturbance handler, and entrepreneurial roles.

Negotiator Role

In this role, the manager negotiates on behalf of the company to safeguard its interests both inside and outside the company.

Negotiations that managers must take part in on the organization’s behalf include agreements with stakeholders like suppliers, distributors, governmental agencies, and labor unions for the resolution of various organizational difficulties.

To be a good negotiator you should learn different negotiation and bargaining skills, and be efficient in making a win-win situation from the negotiation.

Resource Allocation

A manager must distribute the right resources to the right position. This role includes the allocation of resources (human, financial, information, raw material, and machinery) effectively for higher productivity.

He should properly allocate organizational resources to different departments, sections, units, and employees on the basis of the job assigned to them.

To be a good resource allocator learn about budgeting, prioritizing the resources, and understanding the linkage between resources & activities, and learning how to best utilize scarce resources.

Also Read: The 7 Steps of Decision-Making Process

Disturbance Handler

Conflicts or disturbances are common in the workplace. Managers must manage such conflicts that may be between employees & employees, management & employees, different departments, and units.

In addition, managers must manage uncertain disturbances that might arise from changing environment and makes necessary decisions to prevent such disturbances.

For an effective disturbance handler, you should learn different disturbance or conflict resolution techniques, learn to manage employees’ emotions and develop positive attitudes toward conflicts.

Entrepreneurial Role

An entrepreneur is one who takes new actions in a changing environment. The entrepreneurial role of managers states that managers should take innovative, creative, and new actions to solve problems and achieve desired goals in different ways.

It states that managers should take risks for better organizational performance and efficient achievement of goals as entrepreneurs take to exploit different new opportunities.

To be good in the entrepreneurial role you should learn from entrepreneurs’ actions, develop new management skills, work on creative skills, and build implementation skills.

Hence… in conclusion… a manager should perform these 10 managerial roles and build the necessary skills to fulfill these roles as effectively and efficiently as possible to ensure the achievement of organizational goals.

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